Over at the eBlox blog, thoughts on how Google's local deals ambitions are rubbing up against their fight against web spam. Is encouraging quantity over quality in reviews a violation of Google's own principles? Read it here.

Infographic: Are Deals Sites Here to Stay or Just the Latest Craze? - Nicholas Jackson - Technology - The Atlantic

I've got mixed feelings about daily deal sites. As we've discussed in the Web Marketing and Advertising class, if you view them purely as a marketing expense and measure their value by customer acquisition cost, then at least you've got a good basis for determining whether or not they actually make economic sense. This G+ infographic (analyzed in detail by The Atlantic) gives a pretty good idea of how deal sites work and what they actually mean to merchants in terms of cost. For merchants that can afford the customer acquisition cost, there's the secondary issue of capacity - can you handle the rush of deal-seekers? As always, be careful what you wish for. Full article here.